


go out with a

by endquestionmark



Category: Ghostbusters (2016)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-17
Updated: 2016-07-17
Packaged: 2018-07-24 14:58:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7512637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/endquestionmark/pseuds/endquestionmark
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I used to lie under my bed and wonder what it was like to be dead," Erin says, lying in the back of the hearse. Even with the rails taken out, it isn't very comfortable.</p><p>The clattering stops. Holtzmann leans back, still halfway out the window with one socked foot hooked under the steering wheel, to look at her. "How did you die?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	go out with a

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [Cat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/indigostohelit) for enabling the cycle of mutually-assured destruction that led to this, which should honestly be subtitled _I Can’t Tell If What Happened Was Weird Or Sexy: Ghostbusters Edition_.

"I used to lie under my bed and wonder what it was like to be dead," Erin says, lying in the back of the hearse. Even with the rails taken out, it isn't very comfortable—

"Well, it isn't!" Erin had said, the first time they'd all piled in and Holtzmann had gunned it up the West Side Highway. "Honestly, you'd think they'd take that into account when they design these things."

Patty had given her the most dumbfounded look in the world. "How is it," she said, "that you know enough science to ruin eight jumpsuits a week but you're still asking me this question? How are you asking me this."

"I don't think the occupants of this type of vehicle are usually concerned about that kind of thing," Abby had added, looking half apologetic and not a little resigned. Or long-suffering, Erin thought, if only because it was a less unflattering way of thinking about things.

Holtzmann had chosen that moment to swing onto the exit ramp, sending all of them careening into the walls. "They're super dead," she drawled, looking over her shoulder. "Unlike you guys."

Erin had grabbed at the back of the passenger seat, soles skidding as she scrambled for traction. "We really, really need padding back here."

"At least we can afford it now," Abby said. "Though I would honestly rather chew glass than have the mayor offer us one of his women-in-black SUVs again."

"With air conditioning," Erin said mournfully. "And suspension."

Abby had given Erin one of her _I'm not disappointed, I'm just mad_ looks.

"Hey, I wouldn't say no to a new car," Patty said, "but not one with that many strings attached." She shrugged. "My cousin-in-law runs a moving business, if you want something off the books. Moving pads, tie-down straps, whatever. She's your girl. Just say the word."

"Straps," Holtzmann chorused, and swerved to hit a series of potholes that — individually and cumulatively — made Erin seriously reconsider her choice of career.

"That," Erin said through clenched teeth, "would be fantastic." She had craned her neck to see around the headrest, and yelped. "Watch out for that sign! Holtz, _watch the sign_ —"

—So a week later, when the scratches have been buffed out of the fender and the bruises have mostly faded, Erin finds herself lying between the bier pins as comfortably as she can and talking to Holtzmann, who is leaning out the window doing God knows what to their home-brewed nuke.

The clattering stops. Holtzmann leans back, still halfway out the window with one socked foot hooked under the steering wheel, to look at Erin. "How did you die?" she says, pushing up her goggles.

"What?" Erin says, already braced to apologize. "Is that not weird? I thought it was weird. My therapist thought it was weird. All three of them."

Holtzmann frowns. "Depends how you died."

"I never actually thought about that," Erin says. "I mean, I was sixteen. Sixteen-year-olds don't really think about that kind of thing."

Holtzmann looks unconvinced.

"I guess it would have been some kind of freak accident?" Erin thinks about it. "I mean, I guess I wasn't missing any limbs or anything, because cremation would sort of defeat the purpose." She shrugs. "Like I said, it was weird. Whatever."

"Electrocution," Holtzmann suggests, as if they're going through takeout menus trying to pick a place for dinner. _Thai. Tex-Mex. Massive internal trauma._ "Just saying. Freak accident, check. Intact body, check. Maybe not an open-coffin kind of thing. Were you buried already, or just dead?" She whoops. "All set!"

Erin watches as Holtzmann slides back into the front seat, arms up as if she's on a rollercoaster, and dumps a wrench and a handful of Allen keys into the glove compartment. She doesn't want to know. "I guess I never thought about that either," she says. "Buried, since I was under my bed."

"Dead is way more fun," Holtzmann says, and props her chin up on the headrest, grinning upside-down at Erin. "Except you definitely wouldn't be laid out like that. Hang on—" She climbs over the seats and leans over Erin with her hands on her hips. "—Yeah, that's way too neat. Try to look like you've just jammed a screwdriver into an outlet, which is something that I have definitely never done."

Erin uncrosses her arms, and hesitates. "Bent elbows?"

"Oh, for sure," Holtzmann says. She nudges Erin's shoulder with her foot. "One up and one down. There you go." She frowns. "Maybe bend your knee as well. No, the other way." She kicks Erin in the knee, ignoring her yelp of pain. "Yep. Just like that. Definitely electrocuted."

"I really don't feel like my leg is supposed to do that," Erin says.

"It's like yoga!" Holtzmann tilts her head.

"Holtz," Erin says, "have you ever done any type of yoga? At all?"

"Nope," Holtzmann says cheerfully. "Not flexible enough." She grins. "I definitely couldn't do what you're doing right now."

Erin sighs, exasperated. "Great," she says. "Can I stop lying here now?"

From the look Holtzmann gives her, Erin may as well be speaking Klingon. She holds up a finger, and clicks the button on an imaginary tape recorder. "Subject," she says to nobody in particular. "Unidentified white female, late thirties to early forties, medium height and build. I have no idea what I'm doing," she adds, looking down at Erin. "But — wait for it—" and she swings open the back doors of the hearse, scrambling out.

"Holtz?" Erin says, and cranes her neck. She can't see much without moving, and her knee already feel stiff. The doors are still open, but Erin doesn't want to get up to close them if it means that she'll have to arrange herself all over again. "Holtz!"

"You're _dead_ ," Holtz says, leaning in through the passenger side window. "Stop talking."

"I'm uncomfortable," Erin says, as Holtzmann climbs back into the hearse and closes the doors behind her, tails of her newly-acquired lab coat flapping behind her. "And I'm pretty sure I can feel the cartilage in my knee giving way."

"Shh," Holtzmann says, pressing a finger to her lips, and whips her head around to glare when Erin opens her mouth. "Ladies and gentlemen!" she says. "Ghouls and other ghouls, we have here a wonderful example of why you should unplug all your devices before attempting maintenance."

"Oh my god," Erin says.

Holtzmann looks at her. "I'm having too much fun, right?" she says. "Wait. Give me a second." She clears her throat, leaning over, and Erin can feel her gaze, prickling along her skin like static. "We have here a classic example of the Lichtenberg figure," Holtzmann says, like a lecturer. "Caused by the rupture of capillaries in the wake of a high-voltage discharge, or possibly the accompanying shock wave."

Erin holds very still.

"Rigor mortis is beginning to set in," Holtzmann goes on, "but the cadaver retains a degree of mobility which — combined with the rapidly developing lividity — suggests a relatively brief interval between death and discovery." She turns to the side, as if playing a guitar solo, before turning back. "The subject," Holtzmann says, "likely died without regaining consciousness," and Erin thinks: _Fuck._

Holtzmann leans over, very close, and says: "Further conclusions would require more a intrusive post-mortem examination."

There's weird, Erin thinks, like a sixteen-year-old under her bed trying to imagine what it must be like to never feel anything — never breathe — never be anything ever again, and then there's weird like the way that she feels now. As if she's doing something that she shouldn't, and getting away with it, Erin thinks, or as if Holtzmann has guessed at something that Erin doesn't want her to know, and Erin wants her to keep going until she finds something even worse. She feels like a teenager all over again: looping a scarf around her neck twice in her room, pulling it just the wrong side of too tight and going warm all over and not knowing what it meant.

Erin keeps her breathing shallow and regular and stares at the ceiling and says nothing at all. She definitely doesn't say what she wants to, which is: _Say that again._

Holtzmann is still leaning over her. She looks just as manic as ever, but she looks focused the way she only ever does about experimental prototypes. After a minute, she sits down next to Erin, and flops down on her back. "Huh," she says. "I see what you mean."

"Holtz," Erin says, staring intently at the ceiling and wishing there was another way to ask. "Are you — like — is this, wow. Awkward. This is awkward." Her entire face is hot, and she takes a deep breath and says, in a rush: "Are you into this?"

"Uh, yeah," Holtzmann says, as if it's no big deal. "Wait." She sits up. "Are _you_ into this?”

"No," Erin says. "Pssh. No way. That would be weird." Her face must be scarlet by now. "I mean, not that I think you're weird. I mean, you are weird. But still."

"You _are_ ," Holtzmann says, and Erin can picture exactly how she looks: eyes alight, open-mouthed grin, as if the universe is bigger and weirder than she'd ever imagined and now she gets to hit it with a pipe until something gives. "Whaaaaat."

"Oh my God," Erin says. "So are you! We can just—" She scrambles for words. "We can — what?" Holtzmann is leaning over, grinning just the way that Erin had pictured. "What is it?"

"Hey." Holtzmann grins even more widely. "Can I bite you?"

"What?" Erin says. Nothing makes sense anymore. "Why?"

"For science," Holtzmann says, as if that explains everything, and Erin shrugs weakly.

"Sure," she says. "For science. Why not—" and Holtzmann leans over and sinks her teeth into the side of Erin's neck, halfway up, where Erin can feel it in the muscle. "—Fuck," she says, "that hurts!"

Holtzmann doesn't let go for another second. When she does, she sits up, and it takes Erin a moment to realize why. She sits up, lunging forward so quickly that she hits her head, and nearly blacks out for a minute.

Through the starburst of it, before the dizziness hits her, Erin says: "That doesn't mean you should _stop_ ," and grabs for Holtzmann's tie. It's an awful tie. It looks like it was made of material that didn't get through the auditions to be the Von Trapp family curtains. Erin gets two fingers looped through it and yanks, and Holtzmann sprawls on top of her. "You," Erin starts, and when she realizes that she doesn't have any idea how the sentence ends, kisses Holtzmann instead.

Holtzmann makes a surprised noise, but she gives as good as she gets: kisses back open-mouthed and filthy in a way that hits Erin right in the gut. She rolls Holtzmann over, gets both hands in her hair and knocks her glasses off, and wishes that she would wear fewer layers. "Autopsies, huh," Holtzmann says, in a tone of voice that suggests that she's filing it away for later.

Erin is too busy trying to figure out her priorities — Holtzmann's clothes, her clothes, which of them she can get out of the way without letting go of Holtzmann's hair — to pay attention, beyond abject horrified arousal, until Holtzmann goes for her jeans. "Oh!" Erin says, then, and nearly headbutts her in the face. She grabs at the walls, and gets one hand braced on the ceiling, which isn't very dignified but it'll do.

It doesn't matter, given that Holtzmann doesn't even bother to get her jeans all the way off. She just shoves them down to mid-thigh and yanks Erin forward, lip caught between her teeth as she gets Erin off with two hands, rough and fast and unapologetically messy.

It's exactly what Erin wants, and what she never quite manages to ask for, but then she hasn't exactly had time for much other than work until lately. She knows that she's being loud — probably too loud — but Holtzmann fucks her like she's trying to see how much Erin can take, and then what'll happen next.

Erin can take a lot, though most people don't try to find out. Holtzmann is pushing it — three or four fingers, enough that Erin knows she'll ache afterwards, even though she's wet enough to make it easy — and she looks absolutely enthralled. "Autopsies," she says again, grinning. Erin moans, loud enough to be embarrassing, and rocks down. "You," Holtzmann says, putting on an accent that might be Transylvanian by way of Young Frankenstein, "are quite something, Dr. Gilbert," and Erin comes looking down at her wild grin and wide eyes, trying to be quiet and completely failing.

When Holtzmann moves to wipe her hand on Erin's jeans, Erin catches her by the wrist. "Oh really," Holtzmann says, and Erin flushes even more.

"I," she says. "No, I mean. Oh." Holtzmann brings her fingers — Erin's hand still wrapped around her wrist — to her mouth, and licks them clean. "Well. Yeah."

"Uh huh," Holtzmann says, and takes Erin by the hoodie strings — almost throttling her, and Erin is sure that Holtzmann notices the possibility as well — and pulls her down. "Did you mean this?" She tugs Erin closer an inch at a time.

"Fuck," Erin breathes, and this time she kisses Holtzmann thoroughly, taking her time and holding Holtzmann in place until she can't taste any more of herself. "Yeah," she says, out of breath. "Definitely." A little less desperate now, she tugs at Holtzmann's hair.

"Still looks good, doesn't it?" Holtzmann says. "I can't tell you how. It's a secret. And it definitely doesn't involve ectoplasmic residue."

Erin blinks. "I'm just going to ignore that." She shoves at the shoulders of Holtzmann's jumpsuit, yanking the zipper down, and pauses. "Wait. Are you literally just wearing socks and a tie and this?"

"Nuclear reactor maintenance can be pretty touch-and-go." Holtzmann shrugs. "I always try to dress for the apocalypse."

"Your socks don't even match," Erin says.

"Obviously," Holtzmann says, and looks at Erin as if the answer should be obvious. "Who wants to be wearing matching socks when the world ends?"

"No," Erin says, very slowly, as Holtzmann shrugs her way out of the jumpsuit, and tries not to be too obvious about staring. If Holtzmann's smirk is anything to go by, she's doing a terrible job. "That definitely makes sense."

"Told you so," Holtzmann says, and leans back, swinging her shoulders a little as if to music that only she can hear. It's distracting. Holtzmann in general is very distracting. "Experimental method, baby. It never fails."

Erin leans in, and says: "Say that again."

Holtzmann does.


End file.
